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Emily Estey (97)

Emily Estey began her career at NAHS participating in the 1993 cross-country season and finished with spring track in 1997. In between she lettered 12 times, ending her senior year as the Athletic Cup winner, Maurice D. Grant Award winner and a Boston Globe Phelps Scholar Award winner. Since I coached her for eight of those twelve seasons and saw her everyday at home, you would think I would take credit for teaching her everything. But I know she taught me valuable lessons as well, and ones that can be applied by other athletes. Here are but a few.

During her junior year in the state finals 800M Emily was one of the top seeds. The race progressed well and entering the last turn she moved from third to first. But coming down the final straightaway she was re-passed by two girls and ended up third. The following week she participated in the New England Championships at Brown University. This time she was #5 seed and I was just hoping she would be able to place. At the 400M mark she was sitting in the middle of the pack. This time she started moving even earlier and with 300M to go moved into first and started to sprint, pulling away from the pack. She held a huge lead with 100M to go and held on to become New England Champion. The difference between us that day – I merely wanted her to place but she set her heights higher. All indications before the race were that she was facing people that could beat her. But she could picture herself beating them, and did so in PR time. The lesson is to not allow past performances to put restraints on future performances. She believed in the phrase “each day is a new opportunity for greatness” and proved it was the day for her to be great.

When the state meet rolled around the following year Emily was faced with a dilemma. She was rated in the top two in the state in both the 800M and the 300Mhurdles. We chose to have her compete in the 300MH, the theory being she had already proven herself in the 800M. After winning the state class meet she was then going to have to compete against the two-time state champion in the event, Ryan Sheehan. The start looked like two people shot from a gun and they stayed exactly even though the first three hurdles. Over the next three Emily started to pull ahead and that broke Ryan. As the previous champ faded Emily was actually able to run the last two hurdles conservatively to insure the win. The lesson was to “not be afraid to find new challenges”. Another way to put it is another favorite saying, “sometimes you have to give up what you are to become what you can be.”

She skipped the New Englands to run in the Nationals in North Carolina. The Hockomock League all-star 4X400 of Alison Culley, Jen Vendetti, Emily and Mauricca Carlucci ran a 3:47 to place 5th. She got home late Sunday and had to decide whether to participate in the State Heptathlon the next day. In her previous three years she had been 4th, 3rd and 2nd. She decided to compete and on day 1was all right but not sharp. Her performances put her in 8th and she was down to her last day of high school competition. Day 2 her javelin and long jump brought her into third place and a quick calculation showed she would have to beat the previous year's champion by eight seconds in the final event – the 800M. Emily ran like a person possessed and broke her own PR by over a second, running 2:14.9. That established a state heptathlon 800M record that still stands, gave her the victory and we found out later set the state heptathlon scoring record at 4,111 points. No one would have blamed Emily if she hadn’t competed. She had a full season of record-breaking accomplishments and didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. But she also is a great example of an appropriate adage. “You lose 100% of the races you don’t enter.” Rather than dwell on the reasons not to compete she focused on the main reason to compete. That being, you can’t win if you don’t play. It is a lesson to all not to fear competition. Each challenge is an opportunity.

Which brings me to my last story, for now anyway. I thought Emily was one of the hardest working athletes I ever coached – in the same category as Beth Pfefferle, Karen Pearce and Lynn Liberatore. Emily went on to run at Yale. I was amazed at how much more she had to do. Morning pool workouts, increased mileage, after practice lifting sessions etc. At first it wore her down but eventually she got stronger. Times she didn’t even consider running in high school became easy. By the end of her senior year she pulled off a double in the league championship that I had seen a great athlete fail to do the year before. After winning trials in the 1500M and 800M on Saturday she came back to win the Ivy League 1500M, place third in the 800M in PR time and run a 2:12 in the 4X800M (all within two hours). It was an awesome performance. I doubted she could do it. She never had a doubt! She proved an important lesson. You can always work harder!! That’s all she did. She worked harder and harder until her body had no limits. Athletes have to realize that “you can always work harder”. Be smart about it because the body can also break down, but there is always something else you can do to get better.